During today’s press conference, referenced below, Paterson also talked about the worsening state of the economy and the need to address it sooner rather than later.

He commented on an NPR segment he heard this morning, which, according to Paterson, featured economists arguing that the economy was going through a bad patch but would recover by next year.

Paterson’s comment: “This has finally confirmed to me that flying saucers had landed an people from outer space are in our midst and interfering in policy.”

We’ve looked for this segment on NPR and on Marketplace, so far no sign of such a report. We have a call into the Governor’s office about it, but haven’t heard back yet. Will update when we do.

Paterson is pushing hard on the issue of the state’s worsening economy and reining in the budget. He’s mentioned a few possible actions – including cutting the budget on funds that are not passed-through to local government, and asking the federal government for help. He didn’t go into specifics on the latter, but said he’d hope that the feds will recognize “how helping us, inevitably helps the country.”

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